Interest in neurosurgery at the beginning of med school vs at the end

[Guest]

I swear so many want to do neurosurgery during M1 (around 20 from a class of 140 or so). How likely is it that people end up changing their minds in time for applications and how many of those 20 usually apply? Was it because they found something else they were passionate about or did the lifestyle simply catch up with them and they had to settle for something else? Just curious.

[Focus]

75% attrition.

[Guest]

That's surprising but also at the same time not so much. I guess the realities of neurosurgery aren't for everyone.

[Guest]

I'm at a 200+ class size medical school. 10-12 is typical at MS1. Numbers drop dramatically to 3-4 a year applying by MS4.

Most of the time, students voluntarily find another specialty they like more. Other times, faculty will advise students that they are not competitive and to find an alternative. Not sure how that will change with Step 1 P/F.

[Focus]

Most people don't come in with a definitive specialty. I feel like I read that half of more attrition is common in all fields.

[socrates]

(12-19-2022, 06:21 PM)Focus Wrote: 75% attrition.

For med students, I'd put it at >95% attrition rate from interest to actually becoming a neurosurgeon. We still have a 30% attrition rate at completing residency.

[drstrange]

30% residency attrition rate? That's way too high. 10-15% more realistic.

https://thejns.org/view/journals/j-neuro...-p1668.xml
https://thejns.org/view/journals/j-neuro...e-p240.xml

[Guest]

Most people have no idea what neurosurgery is and what it takes (unless they have a family member or other personal contact who is a neurosurgery). For "most" people, saying you're going to be a neurosurgeon on the first day of M1 is not that far off from saying you're going to be a firefighter when you're in kindergarten.

I had 0% interest in neurosurgery on day 1 of my M1 year. Really liked neuroanatomy in second half of M1 but "knew" neurosurgery was miserable, sick patients, bad outcomes, long hours, etc. Rotated as an M3 and loved it. Never looked back since.

[Guest]

I feel like neurosurgery not only has more attrition during medical school than other specialties but also has fewer people initially not interested and then end up loving it and applying (while a lot of other fields like ENT, plastics, vascular, etc., you see that a lot). The above poster seems to be an exception

[Guest]

if you become interested late, how do you have time to do research and make connections?